Does Iraq pose a greater threat with UN inspectors in the country, or not? Would the Middle East be a safer place if Iraq was bombed and occupied by US and British forces? Would the US and Britain be more secure as a result?

Bizarrely, these questions are not rhetorical. Bush and Blair appear to believe that the answers are yes, yes, and yes. Of course, Saddam Hussein lied about his chemical and biological weapons and attempt to make a nuclear bomb. UN inspectors found him out before they left Iraq in 1998 to a pointless bombing onslaught.

What's the hurry, why now? The short answer is because the Bush administration's domestic political agenda dictates it. Why does Britain have to support the US? Because, says the government, Britain's national security depends on maintaining its close relationship with Washington. That this relationship is synonymous with our own national security was emphasised by Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, to MPs last week when they asked him about the consequences of saying no to upgrading Fylingdales for America's missile defence project. Our relations with the US are a "vital part of the UK's national security", he replied.

That diktat blindly drives ministers up a path that endangers, rather than protects, our real security. Those responsible for protecting Britain's national security - the security and intelligence agencies - believe that the greatest threat comes from al-Qaida-inspired Islamist fundamentalism, which an attack on Iraq is almost certain to fuel. Any threat posed by Iraq is well down the road, they believe.

Blair's defence of his policy towards Saddam Hussein and UN weapons inspectors seems increasingly incoherent. In his press conference last week he carefully linked the threat of terrorism with the need to disarm Iraq. There was a danger of weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. He described Iraq as the "focal point" of the problem.

Yet under questioning by MPs on Tuesday, Blair admitted that no evidence had been found of any links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, something his intelligence agencies have repeatedly told him. Yet the Bush administration, encouraged by the Israeli government, continues to promote the lie that such a link exists.

Blair, meanwhile, told MPs the reason Saddam posed a greater threat than North Korea was because the problem was not so much the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction but their use. Yet Iraq has been successfully contained. There is no evidence of its intention to use or proliferate chemical or biological weapons or that a policy of deterrence has failed. It may be argued that North Korea, a great proliferator with the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, is a much greater threat - to the extent that the US is desperate to negotiate with it.

Any threat posed by Iraq was put into perspective this week by the former Democrat senator, Sam Nunn. He was in London to launch a report on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by 13 respected thinktanks led by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The danger was not so much that a state would supply terrorist groups with these weapons. Terrorists, Nunn warned, are more likely to steal them or buy them on the open market.

"Every lab on every college campus has dangerous materials," Nunn said. Yet there were no rules to secure them. The dangers of them leaking out existed everywhere, including in the US, but above all in Russia, where more than 20,000 nuclear warheads sit in 120 separate storage sites. A single artillery shell of nerve agents is small enough to fit into a briefcase and contains enough lethal doses to kill 100,000 people.

The US is blocking funds to secure Russian stores while it spends billions sending tens of thousands of troops to the Gulf, with British support, to topple a dictator who presents no existing threat to American or British security.

Sir Michael Quinlan, former permanent secretary at the MoD and high priest of traditional deterrence theory, has described a war against Iraq as "an unnecessary and precarious gamble". General Sir Michael Rose, former head of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, raises the question: "How will a war against Iraq impact on the global war currently being waged against terrorism?" Douglas Hogg, lawyer and former Conservative foreign minister, says there is no moral case for war since there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein presents a grave and imminent threat to Britain or the US.

They are speaking for many in the highest reaches of Whitehall and the military, as well as in the wider world, concerned about the dangerous adventure Blair and Bush are embarking on.